The City University of New York is the nation's largest urban public university. Founded in New York City in 1847 as the Free Academy, CUNY comprises 23 institutions: 11 senior colleges, six community colleges, the William E. Macaulay Honors College at CUNY, the Graduate School and University Center, the CUNY Graduate School of Journalism, the CUNY School of Law, the CUNY School of Professional Studies and the Sophie Davis School of Biomedical Education. The University serves more than 231,000 degree-credit students and 230,000 adult, continuing and professional education students. College Now, the University’s academic enrichment program for 32,500 high school students, is offered at CUNY campuses and more than 300 high schools throughout the five boroughs of the City of New York. The University offers online baccalaureate degrees through the School of Professional Studies and individualized baccalaureate degrees through the CUNY Baccalaureate Degree. The University Teacher Academy provides free tuition for highly motivated mathematics and science majors who seek teaching careers in the city.
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CUNY traces its beginnings to the founding in 1847 of the Free Academy, which later became The City College, the first CUNY college. According to New York State Education Law, CUNY is "supported as an independent and integrated system of higher education on the assumption that the University will continue to maintain and expand its commitment to academic excellence and to the provision of equal access and opportunity for students, faculty and staff from all ethnic and racial groups and from both sexes."
More than 80 percent of CUNY's senior college faculty hold Ph.D.s or other highest degrees in their fields. The full-time teaching faculty of 6,100 includes world-renowned experts in virtually every field of human endeavor. CUNY Distinguished Professor at Lehman College Billy Collins served as Poet Laureate of the United States. Other current CUNY faculty have won prestigious awards in recognition of their contributions to education and scholarship. Included are Guggenheim Fellowships, Pulitzer Prizes, an Academy Award, MacArthur Foundation "genius awards," and Carnegie Teacher of the Year awards, among many other honors, fellowships and grants.
With more than 100 nationally recognized research centers, institutes and consortia,
CUNY is one of the nation's major research institutions. The New York Structural
Biology Center at City College is a new state-of-the-art magnetic resonance technology facility run by a CUNY-led consortium of nine major medical institutions in New York City. University centers of advanced research include The New York
Center for Advanced Technology in Photonics Applications, The Institute for Ultrafast Spectroscopy and Lasers and the Institute for acromolecular Assemblies. Recent faculty research in the
humanities and social sciences has included studies of women's occupational health hazards, contemporary Latino writers in the United States, problems of contemporary democracy, and
African-American perspectives on violence.
CUNY provides post-secondary learning opportunities at every level, from certificate courses to the Ph.D., in a single integrated system. CUNY offers approximately 1,400 academic programs, more than 200 majors leading to associate and baccalaureate degrees, and more than 100 graduate degree majors.
The CUNY Honors College, established in 2001, was renamed in 2006 to honor philanthropist, investment manager and City College graduate William E. Macaulay. His record $30 million gift established a permanent home and endowment for The William E. Macaulay Honors College, which enrolls the region's most academically talented students in a challenging honors curriculum that incorporates New York City's greatest cultural institutions. David Bauer, first-place winner of the national 2005 Intel Science Prize, while a senior at Hunter College High School, chose to enroll in The William E. Macaulay Honors College over all other top colleges in the country. Private funding helps provide full tuition scholarships, laptop computers, cultural passports, and academic expense accounts as well as study abroad. For more information, visit www.cuny.edu/honorscollege.
CUNY students, many of them new immigrants, have won nationally competitive "superstar" awards including two Rhodes Scholarships, a Truman Fellowship and a Goldwater Fellowship in one year, as well as Marshall and Gates Millenium Scholarships, and Fulbright, Mellon, Soros, Javits and National Science Foundation Fellowships. The CUNY student body is diverse, with African-American, white and Hispanic undergraduates each comprising more than a quarter, and Asians more than 15%. They speak 131 native languages in addition to English, and represent 172 countries. Thirty-eight percent of first-time freshmen are born outside of the U.S. mainland and 68 percent attended New York City public high schools. Forty-five percent of CUNY undergraduates work more than 20 hours a week and 62 percent attend school full-time, while almost a quarter support children. Sixty-one percent of undergraduates are female, and almost a third (31%) are 25 or older.
CUNY graduates include 12 Nobel Laureates —10 scientists and two economists— which is among the highest number from any public university in the country. A U.S. Secretary of State, a Supreme Court Justice, mayors, members of Congress, state legislators, an astronaut, actors, singers, composers, writers and inventors are among the outstanding alumni. More top U.S. corporate executives earned their bachelor's degrees at The City University of New York than at any other university in the country, according to the most recent national survey conducted by Standard & Poor's. Since 1967, CUNY has bestowed more than 950,000 associate, baccalaureate, masters and doctoral degrees. According to a recent CUNY survey, more than 88 percent of graduates found work within six months of graduation and of that group, nearly 90 percent worked in New York. At least one-third of college-educated New Yorkers are CUNY graduates. CUNY is one of the nation's leading producers of African-American and Hispanic engineers and physicians. CUNY colleges are among the top sources of doctoral, baccalaureate and master's degrees earned by minority students in all disciplines. John Jay College of Criminal Justice ranks as one of the nation's leading colleges for Hispanics.
CUNY's 30 libraries contain 7.5 million
volumes, 30,000 periodicals and thousands of microfilms, music scores, records, slides, tapes, videos and other materials. Libraries also license books and journals in electronic format,
and many of these are available from remote access over the Internet. Students at any of the colleges have access and borrowing privileges at all of the libraries. Librarians actively
teach research skills and use of new technologies to access information.
The facilities at CUNY's 23 modern institutions throughout the five boroughs of New York City include the traditional and the innovative . More than 280 buildings on almost 23 million square feet of space include state-of-the-art computer centers, science and language laboratories, gymnasiums, theaters, greenhouses, astronomy observatories and many more features. The Baruch College Vertical Campus on East 25th Street is the largest vertical campus facility in the city-approximately 800,000 gross square feet. The College of Staten Island's bucolic 204-acre park-like campus is the largest college campus in New York City. The York College campus is the site of the $85 million Food and Drug Administration's Northeastern Regional headquarters, where students are offered opportunities for study and internships.
CUNY offers programs that strengthen academic skills and provide advanced placement courses. They include College Now, the free pre-freshman Summer Immersion Programs, remedial classes in community colleges, English as a Second Language classes, SEEK and College Discovery (for economically and educationally disadvantaged students) and an intensive, low-cost CUNY Language Immersion Program for entering freshmen who need to improve their English.
The New York City Council Peter F. Vallone Academic Scholarships and individual scholarships offered by the colleges complement federal and state grants and loans. Graduates of New York City high schools with a B average or better, and who are accepted to CUNY, may be eligible for the Vallone Scholarships, currently $1,250 a year. Of full-time undergraduate CUNY degree students, 70 percent receive financial aid. Each year, 110,000 CUNY students receive federal Pell grants, state TAP grants, and federal work-study grants. Annually, students receive more than $600 million from a variety of sources to help defray the cost of attending a CUNY college. For the latest information, see www.cuny.edu/financialaid.
For New York State residents, tuition for full-time students at CUNY's six community colleges is $2,800. At the 11 senior colleges, it is $4,000 per year. For out-of-state residents, community college tuition is $190 per credit and senior college tuition is $360 per credit.
For more information, visit CUNY's one-stop Welcome Centers in midtown and uptown Manhattan, where counseling and workshops are available to tell you more about CUNY colleges, academic programs, how to apply to CUNY, financial aid and scholarship opportunities, and more.
